The Newton-le-Willows group said sales in the year to March 31, were £370m. Exceptional revenues of £11m on the disposal of the group’s Middle East business took this to £378.5m, compared with £350.3m the previous year.

A pre-tax profit of £19.2m was better than the £11.7m of 2014, but after exceptional charges of £17.1m, including the effects of withdrawing from its Middle East operations, this was reduced to £2.1m, against £7m the previous year after £4.7m of exceptional costs.

Accounting irregularities were discovered in the group’s Middle East operations in November 2013 and the group is now concentrating on its UK businesses after a planned exit from the overseas arena.

Chairman Jan Astrand said today: “I am delighted to report on a year of significant progress at Speedy.

“It is particularly pleasing that, despite all the challenges the company has had to face, we have today reported a strong set of results.

“Shortly after he was appointed chief executive, Mark Rogerson set out a clear plan to return the group to health and build sustainable profit growth.

“Mark and his new leadership team have made significant progress, and whilst there is much to do, there is further opportunity to improve the business.”

He added: “In the Middle East, having completed the exit from general and spot hire ahead of schedule, discussions are underway regarding the disposal of the oil and gas services operations, our last remaining asset in the region.

“We can now turn our focus to developing the business in the UK where there are major opportunities ahead through further professionalising our sales and marketing activity supported by improvements in cost management and asset utilisation.

“We are, once again, in a position to deliver sustainable profit growth and our confidence for the future is underpinned by an increase in the recommended final dividend.”

Chief executive Mark Rogerson said: “We have delivered a good result despite having had to address a number of major issues over the past 12 months.

“We have successfully executed and completed a number of key programmes and have started making good progress on a number of improvement initiatives.

“The UK is investing in a major infrastructure regeneration programme on an unprecedented scale and our customers are demanding a broader range of services and products from their suppliers.

“Meanwhile we have identified a major opportunity in re-connecting with our 50,000+ local/regional customer base.

“We have an increasingly strong platform to build on, we have a strong brand and a leading market position and we are now well placed to deliver sustainable profit growth over the medium and long term.”